


Wretched Life.

by Miss_Missing_You



Series: In Any Universe [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: (maybe it just feels that way bc it took me like two years of writing to get there), Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Slow Burn (ish), slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 12:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Missing_You/pseuds/Miss_Missing_You
Summary: "There’s a young city elf by the name of Kalihira Tabris. She’s a whirlwind of daggers and sarcasm – after all, those are the best defence of those who know how little they have. She’s a Tabris and Tabrises don’t need anyone – especially a shemlen – saving them."Or, the one in which Kalihira didn't choose this but she did choose everything that came after.





	Wretched Life.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi,  
> So this is a retelling of DAO in which I have changed somethings, twisted around events and it is very much from the main character's point of view despite the 3rd person narration - that's just warning.  
> The main thing is, I've spent about the last three years writing this on and off. It means everything to me, it's the hardest I've ever worked on a piece of writing. I really hope you enjoy it :).  
> Please leaves a comment and/or kudos if you did <3  
> Thank you xxx
> 
> Also the title is taken from[ _ **this**_](https://thegingerwithcurlyfries.tumblr.com/post/181408622609/violentwavesofemotion-i-have-only-one-wretched) Victor Hugo quote.

There’s a young city elf by the name of Kalihira Tabris.  She’s a whirlwind of daggers and sarcasm – after all, those are the best defence of those who know how little they have.  But she’s still an elf in a human’s world so she should have expected it when the Shem lordling interrupts her wedding.  He steals her cousin and kills her fiancé, but she is the criminal for standing up for herself.  The humans want to punish her but some Grey Warden comes to the rescue.  She’s a Tabris and Tabrises don’t need anyone – especially a shemlen – saving them.  But he invokes the right of conscription, it’s not like she has a choice.

She does not expect the world outside the Alienage.  The word is more vibrant than she ever could have imagined inside those walls. All she knew before were different shades of brown and the suffocating smell of waste.  Wasted lives and potential.  Yet as they walk to Ostagar Duncan shows her that outside of Denerim the world consists of so much more.  The grass is a shade of green that she’s never seen.  The existence of the colour purple astounds her as it sits on the petals of flowers by the roadside.   They walk in near silence. Duncan, Kalihira learns quickly, is a man of few words.  Maybe all Shems are like that – she hasn’t held a civil conversation with one long enough to know one way or the other.  As she settles down to sleep in a different inn each night she feels a pang of homesickness.  Even with her new found freedom she misses her family. She left Shianni and Soris with little to no protection but each other.  Her nightmares illustrate the possibilities of what could happen without her.  She sees the Arl’s men coming for the women she and Soris saved.  She watches through the bleary black and whiteness of sleep as Shianni gets herself killed. As Soris is slowly broken by loss and hopelessness.  As her father falls through the hole she left.  In the night she almost sobs into her pillow.  Grieving for everything that could be happening as she walks ever closer to freedom.  The rough woven fabric of the pillow rubs against her face. It hauls her unceremoniously back to reality.  To the cold bed and Duncan’s heavy breathing across the room. In the morning she ignores the images her mind conjures forcing herself back to her road in front of her.  It is a credit to the Warden’s character that he chooses to ignore the bags around her eyes.

The king greets her and Duncan when they arrive in Ostagar.  He is resplendent in golden armour.  Kalihira replies to his greeting civilly.  Sure she was raised in the Alienage, but she was raised right.   In her head she realises how young the King is.  Sure, he is older than her but she is still young.  King Cailan’s age is evident in his eagerness to fight and the gleaming golden armour.  Kalihira may be younger but she feels twenty years his elder.  Before her is an overgrown child who has never seen war or anything harder than a lack of pudding.  Maybe she is too harsh on the king. But the way he brushes of the Blight rubs her the wrong way.  Duncan looks more tired than her as he tells her to find another warden. For a second she dithers wanting to hear from Duncan whether the king is right to brush the threat aside.  But she doesn’t, choosing instead to find the Alistair she was directed towards.

The warden is talking to a mage. Kalihira stops herself from staring at the man in robes.  There had been a mage in the Alienage once, a cousin.  But then again who wasn’t?  They took him away when he started to show signs of his magic.  She shakes her head at herself, of course there would be mages here, fight magic with magic.  Hanging back she watches the two shemlen talk.  The warden is not doing well, the mage grows more and more agitated.  She waits until the mage leaves to walk over.

“You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”  For a second Kalihira cannot tell whether he is talking to her.  But he turns to her with this lopsided grin on his face and it’s so different from anything she has ever seen in a Shem before.  She has to fight the urge to smile back.

“I know exactly what you mean.”  Her voice cracks a little.  The warden’s smile widens.

“It’s like a party: we could a stand in a circle and hold hands.  That would give the darkspawn something to think about.”  For a second Kalihira debates breaking the banter.   After all, getting to comfortable with a Shem is never a good idea.  Something about this Shem is different though and he soon going to be her ally. She needs to get along with him.  The worse thing is she wants to get along with him.  So she lets the banter continue, somehow not wary of him.  When the warden clarifies that he is Alistair she offers her name without any qualms.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Kalihira Tabris.”  He smiles oddly at her before launching back into Grey Wardens 101.

The ground is hard and cold.  But that’s not the reason Kalihira is shivering.  Before she opens her eyes all she can see are out of focus images that would make greater men than her scream.  She is silent as she opens her eyes, fighting back the sick that wells up in her throat.  The first thing she sees is Daveth’s lifeless body.  His white eyes are staring at her across the stone floor.  Shakily she sits up, ignoring Alistair’s offered hand as she pushes herself up from the floor. Duncan nods, satisfied.  He fights through Alistair’s babbling.  As soon as the Warden Commander is able to be heard Alistair is silenced, it shows in her comrade's eyes how much he respects the older man.  Duncan tells the two to get their rest for tonight, tomorrow is the attack on the Darkspawn.

There’s this new feeling in the pit of her stomach, like a cold hum that sits there weighing her down.  She and Alistair walk away from Duncan, who stays to handle the bodies.  She smiles weakly at him when he bids her goodnight but keeps on walking.  Kalihira makes it as far from other people as she can before doubling over and vomiting.  It only serves to make her throat burn and her whole body shiver.  The awful weight in her stomach does not leave.  Nor do the hairs on her arms lie down, or the buzzing behind her eyes and rotting stench in her nose settle.  Suddenly she is hyper-aware of everything happening within her body.  Then she remembers what Alistair said in the Wilds.  The fact sits in her stomach, weighing her down more.  Perhaps it is not herself she is sensing in the cold darkness.

Alistair wakes her up.  For a second the sun filters through his golden hair giving him a halo.  Kalihira almost growls at herself for such frivolous thoughts, instead she waves him away so she can dress.  There is armour laying at the mouth of her tent.  How she didn't notice or trip over, it last night is a mystery to her.  The layers of manoeuvrable leather are whisper soft against her fingers.  She puts it on, savouring the way the cured leather feels on her skin.  When she steps out of her tent she relishes how the sun glints off the grey griffon crest that sits on her chest.  The buzzing that seeped through her whole being the night before is gone.  It’s replaced by a soft warmth in her chest when she catches Alistair’s eye.  The day rushes past, filled with errands.  Before she knows it she is standing next to Alistair listening to Duncan telling them they are not in the main battle.  She can feel the outrage falling off of Alistair in waves. But somehow he reigns it choosing instead to give a quick-witted comment.  Something about the king asking him to put on a dress and dance being where he draws the line. It is so, too, easy for Kalihira to fall back into banter.

“I think I’d like to see that,” she smiles up at Alistair.

“For you, maybe. But it has to be a pretty dress.”

Kalihira is about to bite back but Duncan cuts them off.  The sound he makes is somewhere between amusement and disapproval.  There is something in the sigh Alistair gives that when they leave for the tower of Ishal that leaves her thinking there is more to their assignment than she knows.

The night leaves her tainted, injured and one of two Wardens left alive in Ferelden.  Considering the fact that the only other Warden has only been a member of the order six months things do not bode well.  But then again worse things have happened.  On the upside she has a dog now – he’s called Bert.  Alistair stopped speaking until Lothering, ignoring even Morrigan’s barbs.  Briefly, they stop in the small town restocking supplies and listening to rumours.  Finding out you’re now a traitor, “wanted dead or alive”, can put a damper on the mood.  They find out this information when a group of men tries to attack them in a tavern.  The fight is swift as she and Alistair fall into an already familiar pattern.  If the world were not on the brink of ending she would have been scared of how easily the Shem had fallen in next to her.  To her left she can see a woman in Chantry robes fighting too.  Her form is clumsy with the sword she is using, Kalihira can tell that it is not the weapon the sister trained with. Leliana, that’s the name the sister gives, smiles through the blood matted into her hair and asks to join them.  Kalihira regards the Chantry sister, with her supposed Maker given mission.  She’s probably mad, Morrigan says as much.  But, she lets Leliana join them.  If there’s one thing the four of them – because Bert is as much part of the team as herself – need it is divine intervention.

They walk through what passes as a market place, a bow is purchased and thrust into Leliana’s hands.  As is a basic set of leather armour, after all you can’t fight darkspawn in Chantry robes.  Although, after seeing the glint in Leliana’s eye when she receives the weapon Kalihira is less sure.  On the way out of Lothering they pick up a Qunari.  Sten is a beast, his grey skin is almost the same shade as the armour Kalihira is wearing.  Not only that, but she is pretty sure he is madder than Leliana.  She hears Alistair’s breathing change as they approach the Imperial Highway she feels it too.  The buzzing behind her eyes, the crawling sensation in her skin, is back and she has to fight the urge to vomit. It’s her first encounter with Darkspawn since the tower of Ishal.  All she can see are the rotting faces swarming at her.  Her breathing starts to shake, she’s suffocating, and her blood turns to ice.  Kalihira tries to shake it off, she can’t do this now.  They – Alistair – save the two dwarves the darkspawn were attacking, Bodahn Feddic and his son Sandal.  The Dwarves decline her offer of protection, but she smiles slightly when she sees them at their camp that night.

She dreams of Darkspawn.  When she wakes up her skin burns, she wants to throw up.  The night air does nothing to calm the fire burning her chest.  Alistair cuts through her haze,

“Bad dreams, huh?” She stares at him, unwilling to answer.  He nods understanding.  Looking straight at her he explains what she can still see in front of her.  The Archdemon in its fire is burned into the back of her eyelids, the noises it made echo in her ears.

“Thank you, Alistair.”

“That’s what I’m here for.  To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners.” His face is blank as he stares at the fire but Kalihira almost smiles at him.  She knows he’s noticed that she’s been struggling with their connection to the Darkspawn.  She knows that he wanted to help and this was his way of doing it.  For a second she hesitates before returning to her tent.  She wants to tell him he is more than his wit and knowledge but in that moment she can’t.  Their relationship is too new to show weakness, it’s a step she is unwilling to take.

Quickly Kalihira decides two things.  Templars are dicks and humans are often assholes.  But she already knew at least one of those things.  She – against Morrigan wishes – decides to start with the mages on Lake Calenhad.  After all, in her head, it seemed logical to fight a magic-induced end of the world with magic.  Right? That was until it turned out that nearly every known mage in Ferelden had turned themselves into abominations, or become a maleficar.  Same difference.

“I fucked up,” she says near constantly as they battle their way through the tower.  Alistair tells her that if anyone ‘fucked up’ it was the mages.  Leliana lets out a tinkling laugh looking between the Wardens.  Wynne – a mage who offered them help Kalihira wasn't going to refuse – shakes her head.  But a smile does edge onto her face.  At least it’s only humans.  Kalihira is unsure whether she could have fought the same way against more Darkspawn.  Her mind insists on reminding her of the fight outside Lothering.  How pathetic she was then.  Unable to fight the things that it is in her job description to fight.  Not that she’s getting paid.  Another decision she makes in the Circle tower is that demons and blood magic are complete bullshit.  There’s the sloth demon who forces her to fight her way through nightmares.  Surely it should just be a case of fight the demon – how can a demon of sloth be arsed to make ‘like ten’ personalised nightmares.  Just before the ‘harrowing chamber’ – and let the record show that Kalihira and Leliana never want to find out what a harrowing is – they meet a traumatised young Templar in a blood magic cage.  The way the boy, because he’s definitely not older than Kalihira herself, reacts to them is heart breaking but it fuels her hatred towards this Uldred more.  The maleficar dies by her blade at the top of the tower.  But when they return to the bottom of Kinloch the Knight Commander blanks her.  He prefers instead to direct his questions and praise to Alistair.  The human.  She knows that Alistair is not okay with it, but it pisses her off anyhow.

Has it been mentioned yet that Kalihira hates surprises?  It’s a city elf thing – in the Alienage surprises are never good.  Her almost wedding is case and point.  So when she gets a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach, stemming from the words of some Shem on the road, she signals to the others to be on their guard.  As usual – when it comes to her gut – she was right.  They kill all their attackers except the man lying on the ground smiling.  He introduces himself as Zevran Arainai of the Antivan Crows.  Kalihira is half tempted to kill him.  Something stops her.  She saw him fight and she knows that he could be useful.  Alistair tries to talk her out of it.

“He tried to kill us!” Her fellow warden complains.

“The world is literally trying to kill us,” Kalihira counters incredulously.  Alistair looks hurt as she offers her hand to the Antivan.  The party continues walking.  Zevran takes it upon himself to break the tension between the Wardens.  His flirting leads Kalihira to threaten him with her daggers.  But he just moves onto the less violent Warden, smirking at the way Kalihira grows angrier with each comment.

Still slightly pissed off Kalihira decides to head east to the Brecilian Forest.  The party gives her a wide berth as they travel.  All except Alistair, he can’t quite work out what has other warden staunchly ignoring him.  He goes to Leliana for help but the bard just shakes her head.  That same annoying, knowing, smile sits on her face.  This predicament is forgotten when it turns out that the Dalish Elves they are looking for are having problems of their own.  Because nothing is ever easy they now have to deal with Werewolves.  Motherfucking werewolves.  The Maker must have a sense of humour, Kalihira thinks as she slices her way through the forest for the people who call her ‘flat ear’.   The Circle tower was easy.  It was basically a straight line – if you ignore the whole ‘Circle’ aspect.  But the forest is a different beast. Literally,  there are living trees.  It’s the first time Kalihira has actually been in one and she’s pretty sure they’ve passed that tree (not one of the speaking, attacking ones) three times already.  She brings Morrigan along so they can be bitter together, and so she can have a reason to ignore Alistair.  No-one ever said she wasn’t petty.  It turns out that Alistair does not understand the concept of being ignored.  However, the disgusted noise that Morrigan makes every time he speaks entertains Kalihira to no end.

Again the elf’s impeccable gut feeling warns them something is not right.  As the party travels deeper into the elvhen ruins her gut feeling blossoms into warning bells and goosebumps.  She is proved to be right when they meet Witherfang.  Or the ‘Lady of the Forest’ as the spirit has taken to calling herself.  It tells a story that Kalihira was all too familiar with.  Human takes advantage of Elf.  Elf takes their revenge.  Everything spins out of control.  She almost laughs at the familiarity.  Except her version doesn’t end with werewolves and a dying clan.  Just the end of the world.  No big deal.  The fact that Zathrian lied to her has not enamoured him to her any more than his derogatory comments.  When they find the keeper waiting for them Kalihira grows even more suspicious.  She feigns ignorance and ushers him through the passage towards Witherfang.  She stands aside as the spirit tries to reason with the Keeper.  To no one's surprise it doesn’t work.  After a, far too long, moment of consideration she sides with the werewolves.  Kalihira knows this story, and in her opinion it’s gone on too long.  As she suspected, when they weaken Zathrian he concedes.  Even revenge driven madmen know their limits, it would seem.  She’s thankful that she doesn’t have to slaughter the clan.  Her people have enough problems as it is.  After a few words between Kalihira and the new Keeper the Grey Wardens leave the Brecilian Forest.

 They walk until they are out of the forest.  Then they walk until Wynne starts to falter.  But there aren’t any good places to camp, so Wynne leans on the Wardens until they find a suitable site.  The truth is Kalihira doesn’t know what’s happening or where they’re going.  Just that she wants to be away from the forest before they stop.  But somehow she became the leader of this merry band of misfits.  To be honest it kind of sucks.  All she wants is to sit by the fire in silence with Bert but her role stops her.  Plus there’s the fact that the Mabari doesn’t want to sit with her, preferring to guard the most obvious entrance to camp.  Leliana sits down next Kalihira, grumbling about Zevran. A smile flickers over Kalihira’s face – though it may just be the fire – as she leans on the bard and they settle into a comfortable silence.  But, all too soon, it’s broken as a very suggestive comment reaches them.  The Antivan settles beside them, he is greeted with disgusted grunts from both women.  Yet he just smiles and turns to Leliana.  Taking that as her cue Kalihira nods at the two, getting up to leave them to what is probably, definitely, some sort of flirting.

Alistair is kneeling beside Bert, an indignant look on his face, when she reaches them.

“It bit me,” he says when he sees her.  There’s a look of trepidation on his face as he straightens up.  A twinge of guilt passes through Kalihira as she thinks about how needlessly cruel she was after the Circle.  After all, it wasn’t Alistair’s fault the Knight Commander was a racist arse.  Slowly the awkwardness between them builds.

“Maybe you shouldn’t call him an ‘it’,” she sighs.  A smile breaks over the other Warden’s face.  The tension isn’t gone but it’s not as invasive.

“I know that.  Dogs raised me.  Giant, slobbering dogs from the Anderfels. A whole pack of them, in fact."  Kalihira smiles at him, raising an eyebrow good-naturedly

“That would explain the smell.”  Faux insult crosses Alistair’s face as they settle back into the banter they had before the Circle.  There’s this odd feeling in her stomach as she listens to Alistair.  It sits there making her feel light, at odds with the constant weight of the taint.

Trying to ignore the voice in her head, one that is completely sure what the lightness in her stomach is, Kalihira pushes the party west.  Towards Redcliffe.  With the mages and Dalish elves already on her side the Shem lords cannot say no.  A part of her, the same part that motivated the slaughter at the Arl of Denerim’s estate, wants to see the person who hurt Alistair.  To look them in the eye as they see the man he became without their help.  It’s a bitter, mean part of her but sometimes she lets it rule.  She walks at the front of the group, next to Leliana with an eye always on Wynne.  But as the crest the last hill before Redcliffe Alistair catches her arm and pulls her back.  There’s an awful leaping feeling in her chest as he touches her.  Even through the layers of leather she wears and his gauntlet.  Despite the feeling in her chest her gut still tells her something is up.

“Look, can we talk for a moment? I need to tell you something I, ah, should probably have told you earlier.”

“I'm not going to like this, am I?”  Her stomach sinks.  There is fear in Alistair’s eyes.  Once Kalihira would have revelled in the fact that she made a human scared, but not anymore.  Never with him.

Alistair’s words hit like a strike to the gut.  They knock the breath out of her.  There are bits and pieces she now sees.  The way Duncan protected him makes sense.  The vague sense of déjà vu she got when she saw him for the first time straight after meeting Cailan.  His aversion to giving orders.  All she wants was the feeling in her chest to be betrayal – so she could have a reason to hate him, to squash the way her heart flutters when she sees him.  But the anger doesn’t come.  All she feels is vague acceptance.  There are things she has not told him, why she joined the Wardens is one of them, he is allowed secrets.  It takes a second but she knows the look in his eyes.  A protective spark catches inside when she sees it.

“So ... you're not just a bastard, but a royal bastard?”  The smile that spreads across his face makes the fire in her chest burn brighter.  He doesn’t need to but she lets him explain why he hid it.  When she says that she understands, when she gives him the forgiveness he does not need but seeks, he looks like he might hug her.  At that moment she is not sure if she would stop him.

Redcliffe is a mess, the man on the bridge told them it was bad but that meant something different to everyone – especially humans.  On the walk to the chantry Kalihira takes in the town.  There are barricades everywhere, at the centre of the town is a pyre and around it a makeshift training ground.  There are children holding bows, a look of determination plaster in their faces.  Something inside Kalihira calls out against the child soldiers.  Another part tells her she had been younger when Adaia had pushed two small daggers into her hands and taught her how unkind the world is.  Behind her she can feel Zevran stiffening, he knew the scene too.  The Chantry was foreign to her.  In Denerim only elves who became sisters were allowed into the human’s chantry.   They had made their own for the elves who followed Andraste, but that small hut with a few candles set around an almost childlike rendering of Andraste had nothing on this.  The humans in the Chantry cower.  They walk to the far end of the Chantry, none of her companions seems as enthralled by the beauty of the building as her.  She barely notices when they stop walking, too taken in by the statue of Andraste in front of her.  The bottom of the statue is hidden by makeshift walls but she towers to the building’s high ceiling, Kalihira has never seen anything so grand.  Leliana nudges her back to attention when the red-haired man who seems to be in charge finally looks at them.

Teagan Guerrin is attractive for a Shem, his red hair seems to shine in the warm light of the Chantry.  He looks on her and her motley crew with exhaustion rather than disdain.  His eyes sweep over each of them barely registering their faces as Kalihira initiates conversation.  The Blight was trying and failing to make her a politician.  She is getting nowhere with the man when Alistair moves beside her.  Kalihira sees the flicker of recognition in Teagan’s eyes before Alistair even opens his mouth.  When the Bann addresses Alistair his voice is barely a whisper, brimming with barely concealed disbelief.  There’s an almost shy smile on Alistair's face as he confirms what Teagan says, it’s there for a moment before Kalihira watches him transform into a soldier.  The two men talk about what needs to be done in a way that she never could.

That night Kalihira stands with Leliana, Morrigan and Sten next to the windmill.  It feels odd to fight without Alistair by her side but she told him to stay by the Chantry with the others, catching the walking corpses that fall through her grasp.  She and Sten don’t work nearly as well together.  But other than that it the fight seems to be going well.  Ser Perth and his men are a well-oiled machine, taking no notice of the occasional fireball that Morrigan throws their way.  Dawn is approaching, she can see it on the horizon, when a soldier says the enemy is emerging from the lake.  Falling in beside Alistair to protect the Chantry is the easiest thing Kalihira has done in a while.

“I fucking hate the undead,” she calls to Alistair as she slices one’s throat with her dagger.  He just laughs, using his shield to bash another away from Wynne.

They aren’t able to sleep before Teagan is commending them in the light of day and leading them back to the windmill.  The woman comes as he tells them about a secret passage.  Beside her she feels Alistair stiffen. The newcomer ignores both of them, her terrified eyes fixed on Teagan.  When Kalihira learns who she is, the Arlessa, she understands why Alistair looks so uncomfortable.  Inside her she can feel resentment towards Isolde welling up.  Before her is a woman who felt so insecure in her relationship that she forced a ten-year-old boy out of the only home he ever knew.  Without any care for propriety, after all that’s not something they teach you in the alienage, she cuts through Isolde’s blubbering.   She can’t control the fact that the gaze she bestows to the Arlessa is filled with disdain.  Suspicion grows as Isolde refuses to let them in the Keep.  Over and over she repeats that only Teagan can come.  Alistair tries to step in but it just serves to make their cause less effective.  Eventually, Teagan relents.  But he gives them the signet ring and tells them to follow through the windmill passage.

The kid, Connor, is terrifying in that way only possessed untrained child mages can be.  He runs away, like the frightened child he probably is underneath the demon’s possession, leaving her fighting men who have no control over what they’re doing.  Not aiming to kill is something foreign to each of them and as they knock the men out Kalihira is thankful that she brought Wynne just in case.  Teagan is the first to rise – more resilient than most humans she’s fought, the Arl of Denerim’s men come to mind – and finally the whole situation is explained to them. 

Isolde is dead on the floor of the Keep, Connor is staring numbly at his mother’s corpse and Alistair cannot look at her.  That last detail hurts the most.  Now they’re being sent to chase a fairy tale.  Sent back to Denerim.  Before they leave Kalihira searches the keep for anything that could help their search or identify what is wrong with the Arl.  All she finds is a necklace with a web of cracks that catch the light.  In the back of her mind there is a flicker of familiarity that makes her pocket the pendant.  They walk away from the town until nightfall and then make camp.  Kalihira avoids Alistair until she cannot.  Neither of them is wearing their armour and her reaction to him is amplified with only her shirt separating his hand from her arm.

“About Redcliffe…” He says, she can see in his eyes that he disapproves of her actions.

“What was I supposed to do?” She asks quietly, hyperaware of the whole camp’s eyes on them.

“Wynne said the circle mages could’ve helped,” for a second she sees a shade of the king he could have become.  The quiet, righteous, fury that burns through him almost scares her.  It would have if it wasn’t Alistair, if he were any other shem.

“There wasn’t time to go the circle and get the resources.  You don’t know what could’ve happened if we’d trekked around Lake Calenhad and back for help.  We had to act. I acted.”  Maybe she sees a flash of understanding Alistair’s eyes but suddenly she’s doubting her ability to read him unbiasedly.  There’s that small voice that says she just wants to think that he understands.  For a second Alistair stays silent.  When he speaks again his voice is quiet.  All he does is ask about Connor, and all Kalihira can think is the anger he held before was better than the disappointment shaping his face.

The walk to Denerim is long and the rift between her and Alistair hangs over Kalihira’s head like some sort of dark cloud.  The weight it creates is sometimes heavier than the blight in her stomach.  Especially since everyone, including herself sometimes, is on his side.  Alistair doesn’t approach her and so she gives him the space he seems to need.  He gravitates towards Leliana and Wynne who are as disapproving as him of her choices in Redcliffe.  There is this awful, unjustified and childish, pang of jealousy that goes through her whenever she looks over and sees Alistair smiling at Leliana.  Sometimes she swears she catches him looking at her in camp, as she isolates herself with Bert, but she puts it down to her mixed up feelings.  Maybe she’s finally acting her age.  It’s an inconvenient time to start being nineteen but she didn’t pick it.  When it’s her watch Kalihira sits quietly fiddling with the pendant she stole from Arl Eamon’s study.  She still unsure why she took it.  She’s not Andrastian, the only piece of jewellery she wears is the necklace Duncan gave her after her joining and she isn’t a thief.  All she knows is that it held some sort of familiarity.  Wynne watches her from the other side of the fire.  Her old eyes follow the way Kalihira swings the pendant in front of her face.  They don’t speak, she never does that with anyone anymore.  It turns out that isolating herself is how she deals with guilt and there’s this little nagging voice in her head that says the group she gathered doesn’t mind.

When they meet Darkspawn on the road, ‘forward scouts’ Alistair calls them the first time they see them, the weight in her stomach is worse than was before.  The sight of them so far from Ostagar fills her with dread and it does not help with all the feelings she has come to associate with the monsters.  If he feels any different Alistair gives nothing away, fighting through the swarm like he would any other enemy.  He spares only a quick glance at her, what may be worry – she hopes – etched in his eyes, before remembering that she is the reason that the Eamon is a widower and Connor is having to grow up without a mother.  When he looks at her for a second Kalihira feels better. The moment leaves, she still feels like there are spiders crawling over her and her blood is ice.  In the nights after their encounters with Darkspawn she can never sleep.  She closes her eyes and all she can see are their terrifying faces.  Bert moves from his normal vigil at the camp’s entrance to outside her tent.  From inside she can hear him growling if anyone even comes close.  Once she thinks she hears Alistair sighing dejectedly at the Mabari. 

It takes two weeks before they are standing outside Denerim’s high gates at nightfall.  Shivers make their way down her spine – different to but equally as sickening as the ones she gets when Darkspawn are near – as they come into view.  Kalihira allows Leliana to take the lead, she and Alistair hang back with hoods covering their faces.  They’re still wanted by Loghain in this neck of the woods after all.  Beside her she feels Alistair stiffen as one of the guards mentions the regent’s name. 

Once they’re through the gates Kalihira cannot catch her breath.  Finally she’s ‘home’ but she knows that Denerim is no longer that to her.  It doesn’t feel like she has one anymore. Something tugs in her heart when she sees the closed Alienage gates.  Worry strikes through her, guilt that it’s because of her.  Whether it be her actions in the Arl’s estate or the fact that she – a supposed accomplice to the King’s murder – came from there.  Shaking herself off she suggests they find somewhere to stay tonight.  Gentivi’s shop will not be open at this time.  Leliana, again, takes charge.  Kalihira reaches for Bert as they weave through the streets, using him to keep her grounded and her eyes away from the Alienage gates.  She recognises the abandoned estate Leliana takes them to.  It’s part of a network used by underground organisations.  The organisation is too careful to be Carta and not in the smuggling business to boot.  Before the whole Grey Warden thing Kalihira had been a Jenny on and off, on enough that she knew their safe houses. 

“Stop,” she hisses before Leliana could bend down to pick the building’s lock.  The sister stares at her, eyebrow raised explaining that she knows the house.  Kalihira shakes her head, indicating for her to move.  When she reaches the door she knocks the signature the Jennies had given her on the door, praying to the Maker that she remembered it correctly.  The door opens slowly after a moment.  She steps through the door and is instantly pulled into a bone-crushing hug.  Soris pulls back, looking at her with something akin to disbelief.  Her companions try to follow through the door and Soris’ hand instantly falls to the dagger at his waist.  When Kalihira turns around Alistair’s posture gives away that he is ready to reach for his sword. 

“No.” Her voice is sharp and both men obey her.  The silence is palpable when Soris leads them through the estate’s dark entrance hall into warmer, better lit, side room.  Soris knows what she needs, the room has enough bedrolls for each of them.  She leaves Alistair and the others, choosing her family over them just this once.

It’s just before dawn when she returns to the side room.  Her stomach feels sick knowing what is happening in the Alienage and she cannot do anything about it.  Knowing that trying to do anything would help no-one.  Alistair is sitting up, waiting for her, when Kalihira walks in.  The others are asleep.  It’s just the two of them.  Tentatively she settles next to him.  His gaze is focused on his hands, when she looks down she sees the necklace from Redcliffe.

“You went through my pack?” They’re the first words she’s spoken to him in weeks.  It’s the wrong words. 

“I was looking for food, it was on top.” She believes him.  Alistair can’t lie.

“Why’d you take it?”

“It’s my mine – well my mother’s.”  For a second Kalihira cannot breathe.  Alistair is looking between her and the necklace.  When he realises she isn’t going to reply anytime soon he beings to ramble.  The rhythm of his speech is so familiar she can feel herself relaxing, even as he bares his soul.  He tells her about the necklace, what little he knows of his mother, where the cracks on it came from.  He starts to lament his younger self’s rash actions, at this point she slips her hand into his.  If he has any reaction to her move he doesn’t show it.  His speech ends in him thanking her for returning this piece of his history to him.

“I’m sorry,” is all she says in reply.  Whether it’s for his childhood, her actions at Redcliffe or the fact that he consistently tells her everything and she’s not sure he even knows that her last name is Tabris.  But still, he smiles at her, there’s this look in his eyes that she cannot place.  She makes a split second decision.

“My father gave me my mother’s old boots before my – before I left.” Something in her cuts her off before she can bring herself to say wedding.  Part of her doesn’t want to tell Alistair where the golden ring at the bottom of her pack came from.  It doesn’t want to tell him how she ripped through an estate full of guards in a vengeful rage.  How she watched a man she was supposed to wed die and felt nothing.  How she was almost too late, distracted by her bloodlust.  Sometimes it still fills her with shame.  If Alistair can tell she’s holding back her doesn’t push, his thumb absently makes circles on her hand, edging her forwards.

 “She died a couple years ago.  The boots are in my old clothes chest in his house,” not calling the Alienage home is jarring but she knows it’s true, “Father still has her dagger, she’s the one that taught me to fight.”

“She must have been some woman,” Is all Alistair says.  Kalihira moves closer, closing her eyes as she does so.  The past weeks take their toll, it does not take long for her breathing to begin to even out.  As she falls asleep she is sure that she hears Alistair begin saying something new.

Kalihira is angry when Denerim turns out to be a bust.  Everything in her is screaming that everything they are trying to do is futile.  As she is about to give up on saving Eamon Alistair somehow convinces her not to.  So instead of heading to Orzammar, as she had almost decided in her panic, they head into the arse end of nowhere – otherwise known as Haven.  At least Leliana is excited about the trip. 

Haven is fucking cold and Kalihira is not fucking happy when she finds out that they have to climb a fucking mountain to get to a fucking temple of sacred fucking ashes that may not fucking exist.  The climb to the temple was uneventful, Gentivi lectures them on history, Alistair stops her from murdering him, Wynne listens politely to disguise the wardens’ distraction and Leliana just listens because she is interested.  When they reach the temple – which turns out to not actually be the actual ‘Temple of Sacred Ashes’ Gentivi decides to stay there allowing Kalihira and the others to venture forth into a mountain filled with a dragon cult.  A motherfucking dragon cult.  As they fight through the caves up to the real temple Kalihira rants to Alistair about how unnecessary Dragons are.  Her fellow warden just laughs, using his shield to bash another dragonling away from her. Although her armour, leather as it is, is not flammable Kalihira appreciates the thought.  When the leader of the cult asks her to poison Andraste’s ashes she doesn’t say no, because who says no to the leader of a dragon cult, but she knows she is not going to do it.  Especially with Leliana peering over her shoulder.  When they get into the temple Kalihira feels sick.  There’s something not right there.  Some sort of guardian stops their path.  He – that’s the way it seems to be presenting – seems to look straight through Kalihira as he begins to speak.  Sickness floods Kalihira’s body as she is asked if she failed Shianni.  When she replies with a yes the comforting words of her companions do nothing to settle the awful weight in her stomach.  The guardian turns to Alistair, then to Leliana and finally to Wynne.  Each of them answers his question without hesitation.

Alistair takes control, as he seems to instinctively do when Kalihira stops functioning, as they continue through the ‘Gauntlet’.  He allows Wynne to answer riddles.  He directs the battles against spiritual forms of themselves.  He watches Kalihira like a hawk at every stop.  But there is one obstacle Alistair cannot pass for her.  Shianni stands before her.  She’s staring at Kalihira with the same big, imploring eyes that she last saw filled with shadows.  Now though they were something akin to bright – it turns out spirits can’t get everything right.  She looks on Kalihira and smiles sadly.  There are so many thoughts rushing through her head that nothing the spirit Shianni says registers.  All she knows is that suddenly she’s crying, her fingers curled round a pendant.  Kalihira feels fucking useless as they continue through the temple.

It’s a blur.  Soon they are returning to Gentivi, the light weight of a pouch of ashes sitting in Kalihira’s pocket.  Alistair speaks to Gentivi for her.  The conversation is brief.  All Kalihira knows is that the temple will become a place of pilgrimage and that they are free to go.

That night in camp she doesn’t speak.  She can feel the eyes of the camp on her as eats her stew.  As the others retire to bed she stays – taking watch.  After all she isn’t planning on sleeping, the fake Shianni saw to that.  Now she doesn’t know which nightmares would be worse; the arch demon or Shianni.  Alistair sits down next to her.  For once he is silent, he puts his arm around her and pulls her to his chest.  In his arms she relaxes.  She knows he can feel the tension leaving her body because he begins talking – blabbering in that endearing way only he can. 

“I hate this,” Kalihira says into his chest.  The whimper in her voice makes her cringe.

“The fighting? I’m sure you’ll miss it when it’s all over,” Alistair jokes.  For all his show of being the unobservant clown Kalihira knows he knows that’s not what she meant.  Part of her thanks him for not pushing her on it.

“There will always be more battles to fight somewhere.”  The truth in her own words cuts through her, she knows that when she drank the Darkspawn blood she signed up for a life of fighting.  At this point she isn’t surprised that she has to even fight her mind.

“But we wouldn’t necessarily be fighting them together,” Alistair almost sounds nervous, Kalihira can feel him taking a deep breath, “Kalihira,” Her breath hitches slightly as he says her name and it springs into her mind that it might be the first time he’s ever done it, “This probably isn’t a good time and I know we’ve not known each other very long, but I’ve come to… care for you.  A great deal.”

Kalihira keeps her head where it is, refusing to look at him until he’s finished.  In her chest the fluttering sensation is back and this time it’s mingled with hope that she doesn’t want to crush immediately.

“Maybe,” Alistair continues, “It’s because we’ve been through so much together.  I don’t know.  Or maybe I’m imagining it.  Maybe I’m fooling myself.  Am I? Fooling myself?  Do you think you might ever… feel the same way about me?”

Sighing Kalihira lifts her head to look at him.  He’s staring determinedly at the fire in front of them.  Looking at the clench in his jaw she knows he’s preparing himself for rejection.  Instead of moving to look at him, or trying to pull his gaze away from the flames, she joins him in staring down the fire.

“I think I already do.”  It’s barely a whisper and the halting way she says it makes almost sound like a question.  Her arm is still touching Alistair’s and she can feel him tense, “I already do,” she says, louder this time.  For a second Alistair freezes and Kalihira turns her head to look at him.

“You’re sure, you’re not just saying it to make me feel better?”

“Alistair,” He turns to look at her when she says his name, that same vulnerability she hates in herself is reflected in his eyes, “Have I ever done anything to make you feel better?”

He laughs and something bubbles up inside her chest.  Then his arm is around her again, pulling her back towards him.  Her head fits into the crook of his neck perfectly.  For a minute Kalihira is able to forget that the world is ending and there are far more important things than the warmth that Alistair’s presence puts in her stomach.  It strikes Kalihira – when he places a soft kiss on the top of her head – that they’ve probably been hurtling towards this point since they first met.  Since that first lopsided smile and the way she had to fight giving one back.  Their watch ends too soon.  As Leliana steps out of her tent the two jump apart, though Kalihira could swear she saw a knowing smile cross her face.

In the morning Leliana doesn’t say anything as she ladles out the soup.  It seems like no one notices how Alistair sits so close to Kalihira.  How their thighs are flush together.  How they keep stealing glances at each other.  Kalihira feels like she’s an enamoured sixteen-year-old.  But for once it doesn’t annoy her.  But Morrigan rises them out their revelry.  Her usual bored tone cuts through Kalihira’s haze and asks what they now intend to do with a pouch of ashes.  With reluctance she moves away from Alistair, towards the map.

Looking at the maps, it dawns on Kalihira that there are two things that need doing and they are in exactly the right position to do both.  Her heart aches for a second but she pushes it down as she turns back to everyone. 

“Alistair, I need you to go to Redcliffe.  Take Zevran, Wynne, Sten and Bert with you.  Deliver the ashes to the Arl, see that he recovers and then get us those soldiers.”

“And what about you?” It’s Wynne who asks, Alistair is just staring at her confused.

“We need the dwarves help, it makes sense someone heads straight to Orzammar.  Especially since we’re already so close.”

“I suppose those of us not accompanying Alistair will follow you,” Morrigan drawls.  Kalihira nods. The others just move off, packing up the camp.  However Alistair, seeming to regain himself steps towards her.

“Why are we splitting up?” He asks when he reaches her.  His hand has moved to cup her elbow.

“Strategy, efficiency and logic,” Kalihira says, shrugging.  Alistair sighs.  He lets go of her arms but his eyes follow her sadly as she walks to her tent.

The goodbye is brief and professional.  A nod exchanged between two colleagues as one walks north and the other east.  Alistair tells her to stay safe.  She nods, saying that she will.  Brief.  Professional.  Not two people who confessed their feelings for each other almost six hours ago. 

Kalihira walks north.  Leliana walks beside her, chatting endlessly.  It pains her a little to admit – which is why she’ll never do it – but Kalihira enjoys listening to Leliana.  There’s a part of her that knows she’ll miss her when the blight ends.  When the Blight ends, that’s Alistair rubbing off on her and Kalihira isn’t sure it’s a bad thing.

The climb to Orzammar is steep but as they crest the hill she can see the giant doors.  Personally, she feels their size is unnecessary for dwarves but who is she to question them.  Especially since she’s coming for their help.  There are bounty hunters waiting for her as she walks towards the doors.  She knows it’s her they’re waiting for because one them fucking says it.  They go down easy.  Did they really expect anything else?  At the tall doors into the underground city there is a group of men surrounding a dwarf.  A smarmy human is talking about Loghain and the dwarf guarding the entrance isn’t having it.  Kalihira walks up, ignoring the protests of the human as she presents the warden treaty.  It entertains her that he thinks a dwarf cares about Loghain’s petty lies.  The Dwarf lets her pass.  The human runs back to his illegitimate lord.

Kalihira hates the deep roads.  She decides so about ten minutes after the doors giant doors between Orzammar and them swing shut.  If the feeling under her skin – the one she knows is darkspawn – was bad in Orzammar it’s amplified tenfold in the deep roads.  They walk and Kalihira tries not to think about the buzzing behind her eyes or the ringing in her ears, instead she focuses on Leliana’s voice, Morrigan’s complaints and Oghren’s grumbles.  She wishes that Alistair was here. Not that she’ll ever admit it.  He would know what to say, she could take refuge in knowing that someone else was feeling the awful things she was.  But he isn’t there.  It’s her fault he isn’t and in a way she’s glad of it.  There’s a chance she could die down here, it wouldn’t do if both Grey Wardens in Ferelden died hundreds of miles below the country.

They make camp in the Aeducan Thaig.  There’s no night or day down here so they stop when it seems safe and they begin to tire.  Morrigan conjures a fire for them, Leliana and Oghren huddle near the fire the need for warmth overriding the way the dwarf’s stench repels people.  Kalihira explores the Thaig.  In all she finds is a black rune stone locked in a chest.  She pockets it, thinking about asking Sandal about it when she gets out.  When she returns to the camp Morrigan has moved off with her own fire, Oghren is passed out and Leliana is cooking some sort of meat on the fire.  It’s common sense that stops Kalihira asking what animal the meat comes from. 

The dead trenches drain Kalihira.  Truth be told it almost kills her.  Seeing the Archdemon in person sends a pulls through her blood – one she doesn’t want to think about.  The endless fighting of darkspawn, the ambush on the bridge, the Broodmother.  Kalihira feels dead on her feet.  It’s an awful mixture of exhaustion and the taint crawling through her veins.  But she’s always been good at hiding things.  No-one notices the pallor of her skin and her laboured breaths.  The relief that floods through her when they elect to make camp almost cancels out the nausea in her stomach.

Branka is deranged.  Kalihira can see it as soon as the paragon makes an appearance.  To her there’s no choice.  Caridin is the only option, destroying the anvil of the void is the only option.  Oghren and his idiotic devotion to a woman who does not care about him be damned.  She’s defending the world from Darkspawn, she’s defending the world from destruction, she’s defending the world from mad people who have access to power.  The fight is hard but the buzzing her chest is gone and she’s in the best form she’s been in since going underground.  Kalihira takes the crown, then she steps back.  She watches as Caridin destroys his work, then himself.

The Assembly is in session when she walks in.  It’s an unnecessarily theatrical entrance, but she’s feeling a little dramatic.  As she stands in the centre of the chamber she looks up.  Kalihira thinks she sees a flash of familiar golden blond hair, in her blood she knows who it is.  She holds up Caridin’s crown, offering it to Bhelen.  Her reasons are her own, she doesn’t wait to be questioned.  She leaves before Harrowmonts knees are forced to the ground.  Leliana squeezes Kalihira’s hand, smiling knowingly, before she ushers Morrigan and Oghren back to the Grey Warden quarters.  There’s a soaring feeling in Kalihira’s chest as an extremely familiar Human form comes careering around the corner.  Alistair comes to a sudden halt too far away from her.  He’s staring and she’s suddenly self-conscious.   Slowly – so fucking slowly – he steps towards her.

“Is the Arl okay?” She asks when he’s close.

“Yes.” He breathes.  Alistair’s hand reaches up and cups her cheek.  Her eyes flutter closed as he rests his forehead against hers.

“Are you okay?”

“Now I am.” His breath ghosts across her lips as her cheeks flush.  It would be so easy to just roll onto her toes and kiss him.  “Are you?”

“No, but I’m halfway there.” Her eyes are closed but she can almost hear him smile. 

Alistair is the one who closes the distance.  When his lips first touch hers it’s tentative and soft.  Kalihira’s hands move up, tangling in his hair.  She pulls him closer, putting everything she refuses to say into it.  In the Deep Roads she’d missed him.  It’s not easy to say, but she doesn’t have to.  They break apart as the crowd leaving the assembly jostles them.  Kalihira’s hands remain tangled in Alistair’s hair, Alistair’s forehead remains leaning against her own.  A smile is curving her lips ever so slightly.  There’s something great about the flush in Alistair’s cheeks, the peace in his eyes.  Eventually, she removes her hands from his hair.  They trail down him, ghosting over his shoulders and chest, before one comes to rest at her side.  The other slips into his empty palm.  She moves off, tugging him with him, towards somewhere quieter.

“Never leave me again,” Alistair says in strangled voice between kisses.  It’s night now.  Or at least it feels like it, you can’t tell in Orzammar.

“I won’t.  Where you go, I go,” Kalihira replies pulling him back to her.  He repeats the words back to her, kisses punctuating each one and a smile blazing across his face.

Sunlight is an amazing thing when you’ve spent over a week in dark cave ways feelings as though you’re burning from the inside out.  It is scary how easy it is to forget colours like the bright white of snow, or the clear blue of the sky.  Or the hay colour of Alistair’s hair.  Or that Hazel is a colour, but Alistair’s eyes are so bright when he looks over at her that she doesn’t think she’ll be able to forget that one again.  On the road to Denerim the two barely leave each other’s sides.  Kalihira blames separation anxiety, the two had barely been apart since meeting in Ostagar and without him she was in one of the most awful experiences in her life.  That’s saying something.  But the other members of their party don’t seem to buy the excuses she presents.  They aren’t particularly strong and it’s not like they are trying to hide anything – they kissed in the middle of the Diamond Quarter for Andraste’s sake – but what’s going on between Alistair and her is no concerns of theirs.  No-one approached them about it after.  It wasn’t until about two days after leaving Orzammar Wynne spoke to her in camp.  The old mage, who Kalihira held great respect for, had told her that her ‘relationship’ with Alistair was unwise.  If Kalihira cared for unwise would she be in this position?  No, no she would not.

Alistair comes to her as they near Denerim for the second time.  Kalihira listens as he tells her about the sister he’s never met, Goldanna.  A serving maid’s daughter, but not a king’s.  She nods along with him babbling through the request to see her.  He doesn’t need to ask permission to do things, he knows that.  What he is asking is if she will go with him.  She squeezes his hand lightly when she says it’s the first thing they’ll do upon entering the city.  His cheeks flush slightly while he says thank you.  Ungracefully he leans over and hugs her.  For a second she tenses at the contact, a reflex that still flares up sometimes, but she quick relaxes into him.  After a second Alistair shifts his head down placing a light kiss on her lips.  She follows him as he tries to pull away, continuing the kiss as she smiles onto his lips.  At that moment she’s happy.  As they’ve neared Denerim she’s been counting the moments when she’s felt that, there’s this feeling in her stomach that something is coming that might cut them short.  Alistair tugs her closer, both of them shifting across the grass until Kalihira is essentially sitting on him.  It’s only when there is a light cough from behind Alistair that they break the contact.  They are both flushed and Kalihira peeks around Alistair’s head to see Wynne watching them carefully.

The approach to Denerim is the same as last time; the wardens at the back of the group with their hoods up, avoiding any gaze that could come their way.  Except this time Kalihira isn’t a pariah.  This time Alistair walks beside her, she blushes like a fourteen-year-old every time his arm brushes against hers.  The guards are tired, they just wave them through without search or question.  Everyone takes time for themselves upon entering the market place, agreeing to meet in a couple hours at Eamon’s estate.  Kalihira stays beside Alistair.  As they walk through the market place, looking for Goldanna, she finds her eyes constantly drawn to the still closed gates of the Alienage.  It almost makes her ashamed of the fact that she’s standing where she is.  Next to a human that she has romantic feelings towards, thankful for the hood that hides not only her face but also her ears.  Alistair is scared when they reach the door to, what they’ve been told is, Goldanna’s house.  Kalihira squeezes his arm before he knocks.

She should have known it would turn out like this.  Alistair’s voice is confused and distressed as Goldanna’s words attack him, it pains Kalihira to witness.  She doesn’t plan on stepping in.  And yet Goldanna turns on her, accusing her of playing Alistair for money.  Kalihira is ready to retort but Alistair steps forward, he defends her.  For a second there’s a warm feeling in her chest, but it fades as Goldanna continues her tirade.  Eventually she reaches the point the Kalihira knew she should have expected.  Money, that’s always what it comes down to after all.  Kalihira just shakes her head at the woman, tugging Alistair away.  She doesn’t deserve what little money they could spare anyway.  The disappointment is clear on his face as the door shuts behind him.  He stares at the ground, muttering about how it wasn’t what he expected, how he was a fool.  But Kalihira won’t let this shitty experience change him.  Alistair taught her to hope and she isn’t going to let him lose that quality himself.  So few have it already.  She steps up to him, her hand sliding under his hood to cup his cheek, and tells him he doesn’t need a family like that.  He’s got a much better one already.  The smile he gives her is soft, and Maker does she want to kiss him in that moment.  Instead she moves her hand into his, guiding him away from the house. 

So here’s the thing.  Eamon – a man that Kalihira has never spoken to and doesn’t know anything about aside from the fact that he is an Arl and he kicked a ten-year-old out of the only home he’d ever known – wants Alistair to be king.  He makes it clear.  Alistair is a Theirin and therefore the throne should be his, that is to say Alistair’s with Eamon as his chancellor.  Perhaps her deeply ingrained mistrust of every shem is getting the better of her but all she can feel from Eamon is entitlement and underhandedness.  She can smell it on him, underneath all the kindness and the crinkle-eyed-smiles, he is still the man who sent away a ten-year-old.  Maybe she hangs too hard on that fact.  But how can she not when she stands next to Alistair, her hand aching to reach out to him, and watches him work through the idea of ruling with doubt in his heart.  When she opens her mouth to speak Eamon stares her down.  It’s clear in his eyes that he doesn’t like her.  To him she’s just the knife ear who killed his wife.  She looks him straight in the eye and says that before they can think of who to place on the throne they need to have allies at the Landsmeet.  Of course, Eamon’s plan for getting them those allies entails her fixing everything.  That’s just the way the world seems to work.

Getting allies and leverage isn’t easy – nothing ever is – but Kalihira expected that.  What she didn’t expect was for a familiar elf to run into the room just as she’s about to ready to kill Eamon and tell them that Anora been kidnapped by Arl Howe.  Once she’s finished talking Erlina’s eyes sweep the room and they widen on seeing Kalihira.  Of course, even Orlesian elves who don’t leave royal palaces of their own accord have heard why Kalihira was conscripted.  It’s only too obvious when Eamon turns to them what’s got to happen.  As always it’s down to Kalihira and Alistair to try and save the day.  On top of that there’s the sick feeling that wells up in Kalihira’s stomach when Erlina says that Howe is living in the Arl of Denerim’s estate.  Are there no other places in Denerim to take women that you’ve kidnapped?

Kalihira plans to take a small crew for stealth – just her, Leliana and Zevran – but Alistair won’t hear of it.  She tries to explain the concept of stealth to him, and how he’s not particularly good at.  But he shakes his head.

“Where you go I go,” he says, finality in every word.  He's pushing their promise back in her face, She knows there’s no point in arguing.  And to be honest she doesn’t want him to leave her side.  She just nods and repeats his words back to him.  Like they had done in OrzammarSwallowing her acceptance – as though he thought it would be much harder – Alistair nods and then leans down to kiss her.

In the end it’s Kalihira, Alistair, Leliana and Zevran who follow Erlina to the Arl of Denerim’s estate.  Seeing the place again sends shivers down Kalihira’s spine.  If anyone notices they don’t say anything.  Her friends – because that’s what they are at this point – still don’t know about her wedding day.  They manage to get into the estate and bitter memories flow through her as she once again finds herself in these halls.  Except for this time she’s in the uniform.  No guards trying to kill or rape her.  For now.

In the dungeon they find people in every cell.  Kalihira and Leliana make their way down the hallway, questioning who each person is and setting them free in turn.  About halfway down her side Kalihira looks through the bars and her breath catches in her throat.  Soris is standing at the door, clutching at the bars.  He looks worse hand she’s ever seen him.  Without a word Kalihira picks the lock, throwing the door open and drawing her cousin into a hug.  Soris collapses against her.  After a moment she tells him the way they came in and calls one of the people she’d freed before him to support him, telling them to go to Eamon’s estate as quickly as possible.  At the far end of the corridor Leliana has come to the final cell.  Inside is a man in rags with dark hair and an Orlesian accent.  Alistair recognises him, calls him Riordan.  That familiar anger – so easily tied to this place – wells up in Kalihira again.  He’s a Grey Warden that Howe and Loghain have kept locked up since just after Ostagar.  If she didn’t need another reason to hate the men.  They set him free but he’s in no condition to fight anyone.  So he follows the other freed prisoners to Eamon’s estate.

Like every other fight she’s faced in the halls of this estate, Arl Howe dies easily.  She remembers what she said to Shianni when she saved her from Vaughan and his cronies nearly a year ago. ‘Like dogs’.   Except dogs deserve so much better than men like Vaughan and Rendon Howe.  She steps over Howe’s body, he can rot here for all she cares.

Kalihira should have expected it really.  Ser Cauthrien waits for them at the estates front doors.  Someone is a rat, how else would Cauthrien know to be there.  When she tries to defend herself by pointing out that they have Anora with them – trying to save her – Kalihira remembers why she never used to trust Shems.  It seems every worthwhile shem in Ferelden joined her at least six months ago.  Anora steps forward to say that Kalihira and her friends aren’t saving her.  No, everything she did is lie because they are kidnapping the Queen.  And Kalihira didn’t even know.  So Anora’s a rat and really she should’ve expected that.  Any shem who isn’t already on her side seems to be the worst sort of person.  Especially nobles ones.  Who would’ve thought that being privileged would make you such a terrible person?  Kalihira did.  The guards just want the Grey Wardens – in the confusion she forgot that they’d murdered the king at Ostagar – so she surrenders rather than taking Leliana and Zevran down with them.  After all, Leliana and Zevran didn’t murder the king and they were only accomplices in kidnapping the queen.  They probably didn’t know they were even doing it.  Kalihira didn’t.

The first thing Kalihira registers upon waking up is that her head fucking hurts.  The second: she’s in her underthings.  The third: Alistair is across from her in the exact same position.  It jolts her awake immediately.  They're in a cell, someone undressed her and took her weapons.  Also for someone in so little clothing she’s uncomfortably hot.  But in the background she can hear screams.  There’s that intense, sick stench of death.  She knows where they are without Alistair telling her.  Kalihira spent her entire life in the shadow of Fort Drakon, hearing tales of people who ended up there.   There’s a sick feeling in her stomach – different to the one that Darkspawn give her but just as awful – when the guard leers at her.  But Kalihira grew up in this world, she uses it to her advantage.  But as she does it she’s incredibly conscious of Alistair’s eyes on her.  The feeling of her hand colliding with the guard's face almost counteracts it. Taking the keys off the guard’s unconscious form, she also slides his sword over to Alistair.  She’s never been any good with one.

Escaping Fort Drakon was hard.  Not as hard as the deep roads but Kalihira gives credit where it’s due.  What she doesn’t do is forgive people who almost get her killed.  It’s just not her thing. So she really doesn’t care about what Anora was trying to do.  What she does care about is getting this fucking Landsmeet over and done with so she can get back to stopping the end of the world.  But there’s so much fucking politics.

Being back in the Alienage feels foreign.  The air is heavy, thick with the stench of distress and death.  Kalihira doesn’t remember it being like this.  Maybe she didn’t notice before because she didn’t know anything different.  She spent the last months in fresh air, feeling the wind on her face.  Or maybe the feeling is new.  Maybe it’s a symptom of everything that’s happened since Kalihira’s almost wedding.  Maybe it’s her fault.  Shianni almost doesn’t recognise her.  Where Shianni has gone gaunt, Kalihira filled out.  Where Kalihira has felt freedom, Shianni has known only oppression.  It makes her hate Loghain more.  Hate herself more.  When Shianni realises who she is she pulls her into a tight hug.  Her hair tickles Kalihira’s cheek.  For a second things are almost okay.  But then she hears that her father and keeper Valendrian are missing.  Once again it feels like things are falling apart.  Plague is ripping through the alienage and it got the keeper and her father.  Because of course it did.  And the healers are Tevinters.  Kalihira doesn’t trust like that, especially with people going missing.  Especially with her father missing.

Slavers and blood magic.  Because nothing is ever fucking easy.  Alistair scoffs as soon as the mage brings the ritual up.  Kalihira has to agree with him.  She’s done the blood magic thing – Redcliffe still leaves a bad taste in her mouth – and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  So she kills him, all of his men and sets the elves free.  Or as free as they can be.  Kalihira has no illusions, living in the alienage will never be freedom.  But it’s better than being enslaved to a blood mage in Tevinter.  She checks the mage’s corpse, handing off the documents she finds there to Alistair.  Then she turns to her father, loops one of his arms over her shoulder and begins to help him home.  Alistair and the others don’t follow.  From what Kalihira can tell she has Wynne to thank for that.  Zevran and Alistair aren’t that observant on their own.

Kalihira walks alone to the royal palace, weighing her mother’s dagger in her hands as she walks.  She’d spent the night in her own bed, the one in the Alienage.  A messenger had come in the morning from Eamon, summoning her to the royal palace.  This is it.  The end of all the politics.  Kalihira was never made for this; her mother raised her with daggers, not words.  So much changes based on what happens today.  But all Kalihira can think of is Alistair, how it’s his fate as much as Ferelden’s that is being decided today.  She knows what Eamon wants, what Anora wants.  Alistair, for the first time since she’s known him, is a mystery.  Her stream of thoughts is stopped at the doors to the palace - how silly of her to think she could just walk in.  Ser Cauthrien is waiting for her with a force of men about the same she had in the Arl of Denerim’s Estate.  All of that just for Kalihira.  She would be flattered if she wasn’t so tired of it.  And maker is she tired.  Cauthrien is tired too.  It doesn’t take much, just pure logic and facts, to convince her to move aside.  Kalihira isn’t in the mood for a slaughter.  Plus it really would not help their case.

Alistair is waiting for her outside the throne room.  He’s pacing the corridor.  There are voices coming from inside the chamber already.  The clamouring of rich men with too much to say is easily heard, even through the thick wood of the door.  When he looks up he looks tired.  But he smiles a little when he sees her.  Kalihira has learned to accept the butterflies she gets whenever he does that.

“Are you okay?” She asks, taking his hands upon reaching him.

“Better now.”  Even his voice is tired.  “Eamon wants me to walk in there and declare my claim to the throne.”  He tries for the joke, the way he says it makes it sound completely ridiculous.  But Kalihira knows him.  Knows the uncertainty he’s trying to hide.

“What do you want to do?”  It seems like a dumb question, one that’s had so little bearing on both of their lives.  Alistair stares at her.  Disbelief turns into something else, his eyes soften and tugs her into a hug.  His metal chest plate is cold against her cheek. It reminds Kalihira that she’s been fighting since she met him.  For once she just wants a moment unmarred by the blight.  Alistair pulls back, gently cups her face.

“I want to be with you.” Kalihira smiles up at him.  “But, I don’t want to be king, I’ve never wanted to be king.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Loghain’s head rolls across the floor – the highest price of pride – and Anora takes the throne.  She holds her head high and her lip barely quivers.  Eamon is disappointed, or maybe angry.  But Kalihira doesn’t know what he expected when he left the decision to her.  She’s a selfish being and she doesn’t think she could survive without Alistair by her side.  Alistair drags her into an Antechamber when politics is finally over.  There’s a gleeful smile on his face. She drags him to her by the neck of his chest plate. Their lips meet and Kalihira melts into it.  He isn’t king, she won’t lose him.  As her fingers wind through his hair selfish relief floods through her.  She has lost so much but she won’t lose him.  It would be so easy, and so true, to say I love you between the kisses.  But the words catch in her throat.  So she kisses him harder, hoping he understands.

It’s a long road to Redcliffe, made shorter with the horses Eamon provides them with.  The road is littered with darkspawn – nothing they can’t handle.  But Redcliffe is a different story.  It stinks of death, Kalihira’s skin crawls as they crest the hill.  It’s like being in the deep roads all over again.  Except for this time Alistair is on a horse next to her.  They jump down together – perfectly in sync once again.  Clearing out the darkspawn is a long hard fight.  As dawn crests what remained of the grotesque army retreats.  Kalihira knows they don’t have long – tomorrow they will be on the road again.  But this time they will have the armies promised by Eamon and Bhelen behind them.  The tower mages are in the castle preparing as Kalihira helps to pile up the darkspawn dead.  Morrigan launches a fireball at the tower of bodies, a bored look on her face.  A messenger runs up telling her and Alistair that the Dalish will meet them on the road.  Then Riordan walks over, asking to speak in private.  They follow to the keep – he is the most senior warden in Ferelden.

Riordan leaves the room, his confession hangs in the air.  It’s a fog that’s beginning to drift between them.  Morrigan wanted to talk to her but Kalihira can’t think about that right now.  Not with Alistair looking so lost and worried.  She steps towards him, his eyes meet hers.  They are a picture of sadness.

“Kalihira -” She cuts him off by pressing her lips to his.  There’s not a fully formed reasoning behind the kiss.  Just the fact that she needs him.  She loves him.  They don’t have forever, there is only now.  He kisses her back.  His arms wind around her, pulling her as tight to him as possible.

The kiss is desperate, nothing like the previous ones they’ve shared.  Not the slow and unsure first kiss.  Not the plethora of casual, barely theres that have littered the road between Orzammar and Denerim.  Not the ones that drive her half mad in camp.  The closest they’ve come was after the landsmeet.  That clashing of lips that said everything she couldn’t.  Alistair’s hands are weaving through her hair.  Down her back.  Ghosting over her waist.  Her own find their way to the hem of his tunic.  They slide under.  He shivers at the skin on skin, her cold hands roaming over his warm chest.  His lips move from her own.  They coax a moan out of her as he makes his way down to a place on her neck that makes her knees weak at his attention.  In retaliation Kalihira pushes his shirt up until he has to remove his lips to take it off.  She almost whines at the loss of contact.  He tosses the shirt over his head, his hands move back down and push at her own tunic.  The heat of the fire is nothing compared to his searing hands as his arms wrap around her once her shirt is off.

They lie in the bed, facing each other.  Alistair’s arm lies across her, the warm weight grounding her.  Kalihira is cup his face with one hand and tracing his features with the other.  Feather-light touches trailing across his forehead, down his cheeks, smoothing his eyebrows.  His eyes are closed and Kalihira doesn’t know if he’s asleep or not.  She leans forward and brushes her lips against his forehead.

“I love you,” she whispers as she pulls away.  Alistair’s arm curls around her back, pushing her even closer.

“I know, I love you too.”  It doesn’t matter that there’s a chance they’ll both be dead within a week, in this moment Kalihira is happy.  As she falls asleep in his arms Kalihira Tabris isn’t a Grey Warden ready to save the world.  Or a city elf who is fighting to survive.  She is just a girl who is in love with a boy, and the boy loves her back.

In the morning she goes to Morrigan’s chambers.  Her friend sits on the bed looking paler than usual and pouring over an old book.  Her face softens almost imperceptibly when she sees Kalihira enter.  She thinks the witch of the wilds lets more show than she realises.  When Kalihira asks about what she wanted to talk about Morrigan shakes her head and smiles sadly.

“‘Tis done – it matters not now.  You would do best to return to your beloved and worry more about the battle than me, I am able to handle myself.”

They ride hard to Denerim.  True to their word the Dalish join them along the road.  The Wardens lead the charge as they follow the king’s road.  Riordan at the front, as the most senior Warden, then Alistair and Kalihira next to each other.  Less than a year ago the majority of the people following them would’ve have bristled at this picture.  An Orlesian, a bastard and an elf girl leading an army.  But as things are they don’t seem to have any complaints – not that they have much of a choice in the matter.  The three of them can feel the oppressive atmosphere as they get closer to the capital.  Kalihira’s blood feels frozen in her veins, there’s that familiar buzzing beneath her skin.  It’s like the Deep Roads.  She can see the dragon, its withered wings and sickness, soaring above the city.

The city is overrun.  Ogres in the market place, Genlocks barraging the Alienage.  Hurlocks everywhere, with Shrieks appearing from nowhere just when things seem to be getting too easy.  It’s almost too much.  But Kalihira and her companions have been fighting battles like this for nigh on a year.  And now they have an army helping them.  She and Alistair stay together in the fight, his shield bashing the darkspawn away from her.  Riordan disappears as they fight their way through the city.  Kalihira thinks she saw him take off towards the shadow of giant wings.  Morrigan and Leliana accompany them to Fort Drakon – they’ve been fighting this fight almost as long as the Wardens.   The others stay in the market place, trying to stem the tide.  Before they leave Wynne places a gentle hand on Kalihira’s shoulder, looks her in the eye and urges her to be swift and stay alive.  A warmth spreads through Kalihira that she knows is magical.  She nods and takes off after Alistair.  Towards Fort Drakon.

Swords had never been Kalihira’s weapon of choice.  They were always too large and unwieldy in her small hands.  But her daggers are lodged in the chests of two hurlocks that tried to flank her and the Archdemon won’t stay down long enough for her to pull them out.  So she picks up a discarded sword as she runs towards the giant form.  Over the blood rushing through her ears she can hear Alistair shouting something.  The sword is heavy in her hands – if it was meant to be one handed it certainly isn’t for Kalihira – but she manages to lift it above her head.  She plunges it into the creature’s chest, directly where he figures the heart should be.  It feels like she’s being pulled apart from the inside.  That frozen burning she feels when darkspawn is near is overwhelming.  She thinks she might be screaming.  Someone is shouting her name but she can’t hear them over the pain.  For a moment Kalihira is everything and nothing.

Alistair watches as a golden pillar of light engulfs Kalihira and the Archdemon, He can hear her anguished scream.  Eamon and Knight Commander Greagoir hold him back.  His voice is going raw from screaming her name.  Then he watches her body slump and fall to the ground.  He wrenches himself away from the other men and rushes towards her.  Leliana and Morrigan make it there first.  Healing magic emanates from Morrigan’s hands as she runs them over Kalihira’s body.  She’s crying, it’s the first time Alistair’s ever seen it.  The tears track the kohl the witch lines her eyes with down her cheeks.  Time stands still as the healing light fades from Morrigan’s hands and she leans back.  Exhaustion takes the witch as she collapses into Leliana – her Lyrium reserves spent.  But Alistair cannot take his eyes off Kalihira.  He can’t breathe.  He can’t tell whether Morrigan’s exhaustion means whatever she was trying to do worked or not.

For a moment everything is still.

For a moment the world is silent.

Then Kalihira’s chest rises.  A rasp fills his ears as she breathes.  Alistair breathes with her, tears falling down his cheeks.  He hugs her close.

“I’m not leaving you.”  The words are broken up, laboured breaths filling the spaces.  But Kalihira whispers it for only him to hear.  He lets out a strangled chuckle as she collapses against him.

It’s a week before Kalihira can stand from the bed they relegate her to.  Anora steps into the chamber on the first day she’s awake and gives her Amaranthine.  It’s a gesture of good faith – but it has other motives too, Kalihira can feel it.  Wynne visits her every day, checking her over with the warm touch of healing magic and her own motherly gaze.  Alistair refuses to leave her side.  There’s talk – Kalihira hears it – about the impropriety of the bastard prince and his elf mistress.  But neither cares.  It’s the castle staff and the nobles that hid in their estates during the fighting.  No-one that fought alongside the two wardens questions their relationship.  As she folds into him at night, his slow breathes and the circles he makes on her skin lulling her to sleep, Kalihira doubts she would have made it through without him. 

The others visit too.  They all plan on staying for Anora’s coronation.  Except for Morrigan.  She visits Kalihira late one night early in the week. Alistair is asleep when she appears in the door.  Kalihira is able to slowly detangle herself from him, careful not to wake him, and Morrigan helps her to the sofas by the fireplace.  Only embers sit in it now.  Kalihira stares into the orange flickers as Morrigan tells her everything. The ritual she couldn’t bring herself to ask Alistair to perform.  How she found Riordan walking the halls instead.  How Alistair and Kalihira were able to survive.  And the fact she must leave.  All of it in a voice that could barely count as a whisper.  When the story finishes Kalihira finally looks up at her friend.

“Thank you,” is all Kalihira says.  Morrigan ducks her head.  Kalihira takes her hand and squeezes it tightly.  “Be safe”

“And you.”

Anora’s coronation has all the pomp and ceremony that rich people like to see after hardship.  But the queen is golden in Ferelden’s colours and the sun shining through the high windows of the throne room.  Kalihira stands next to Alistair – his hand covertly at her side should her strength begin to wane.  They are resplendent in newly crafted warden armour.  The blue and silver marking them as a team within the rainbow of the crowd.  Their friends and companions stand with them.  The ceremony ends and they leave.  Kalihira has people to see – with Alistair at her side this time – before leaving for Amaranthine.  But they’ll leave together – with Bert beside her.

And they’ll stay together.  Where one goes the other goes – that’s the promise they made.

**Author's Note:**

> You made it!  
> If you got this far please leave a comment or kudos, it would honestly mean the world to me. You could even contact me [_here_](https://thegingerwithcurlyfries.tumblr.com/ask) on my tumblr, be it pm or chat.  
> Thank you so much for reading.


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